Serious Business

Serious cat is serious.

February is the month of love. February is also black history month. But for me, February is serious business.

And what better way to get the point across than with pictures of cats I found on the Internet?

This month my to do list has some important bullet points: peak in my running (2 weeks!), take a terrifying test (5 days...), get my shit together (3 weeks), get through a wedding (1 week), and get a new job (3 weeks). All of these things have to be done this month. The job only has to be found this month for my sanity, but my sanity is a pretty big deal. So for the next few days I'm swearing off the Internet, for the most part (I do have an addiction, after all), and spending my waking non-working non-football-celebrating moments studying and being otherwise productive. Important things are happening. I gotta try my best to not fuck it up.

Smile: Make It A Great Day

Saw this written on a license plate frame this weekend. The idea that just a smile can make someone's day has always bugged me. Smiling, or a stranger smiling at you, is not going to make your day any better if someone died or you lost your job and have been unemployed for a month and a half with no real prospects...*

Killer Smile: I has it.

I was endlessly annoyed while working as a cashier and middle aged men would ask me to smile as I rang up their purchases. Would smiling on command make my day better? Would it make standing in a booth for four hours scanning vitamins and pens and shampoo as fast as possible any better? Or would my smiling on command simply make these men happier?

A simple smile (though undoubtedly uplifting from that special someone or a hot guy at a coffee shop) is not going to make or break your day. Who has gone home at the end of the day and sobbed, wondering why no one smiled? Does this happen and I'm too caught up in, oh, living my life, to keep tabs on who is or isn't smiling? I was not trained "service with a smile" or "the customer is always right" where I cashiered. I did not offer a service to my customers, and no, ringing you up is not considered a "service." A waiters' smile is going to make your dining out experience better, and you'll tip him better for being friendly, but a cashier's smile is not going to affect your happiness with the product you purchased.

This being said, I'm not knocking people who try to live by those feel-good cutsie sayings if it makes them happier. To each his own and whatever rocks your socks and all that.

*I has a job now.